The story of Trump's loss is both familiar in its pattern of self-destructive decisions and altogether surprising in how little the President appeared to prepare himself emotionally for defeat https://t.co/7RxkgXWzs0
— Kevin Liptak (@Kevinliptakcnn) November 8, 2020
There will be a mort of these stories over the next few weeks, and you all know I am not too nice to share the wealth:
When the White House essentially relocated to Air Force One over the final weeks of the campaign, President Donald Trump had a common reaction whenever he saw his rival Joe Biden appear on one of the airplane’s many televisions.
“Imagine losing to him?” he would ask no one in particular as he hurtled toward another regional airport in another battleground state, according to sources onboard.
When his large-screen television flashed poll numbers showing an unmoving deficit to Biden, Trump sometimes brought his fist down on his wooden desk, jolting the glass of Diet Coke that always seemed to be nearby…
Trump so far has refused to accept the election results, waging a legal strategy to contest them in courts and issuing false allegations of fraud. There are currently no plans to invite Biden to the Oval Office for the traditional meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidents, a historic sign of the peaceful transfer of power. Aides instead are working to craft ways for the President to feel validated even in loss, including through more rallies…
There will be rallies, as long as they can find venues to book. Even if the venue turns out to be an unpaved parking lot between an adult book stare and a crematorium…
… But after claiming publicly and falsely that he won the election, sources say Trump is not denying the outcome privately. And two people said Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and senior adviser who oversaw his campaign from the White House, has approached Trump about conceding the election…
Two people named ‘Javanka’ and ‘Ired’, quite possibly.
… Throughout his second run for office, which technically began the day his presidency started in 2017, Trump appeared convinced the formula that had won him the White House during his first-ever political race would work again. He did not alter his calculus — which included overtly racist rhetoric and an inclination for division — to account for being the incumbent. He forged ahead as normal while the worst public health crisis in a century beset the nation.
The limitations of Trump’s political acumen were not shared by everyone on his team, many of whom worked fruitlessly to calibrate a message focused on accomplishments rather than grievances. Many Republicans attempted to steer the President away from attacking mail-in ballots, fearful they could depress his support in a pandemic, according to people familiar with the conversations.
But in the end, those closest to Trump accommodated his whims and obliged his obsessions, including his insistence on not wearing a mask in public and his demand to convene massive rallies as coronavirus cases spiked. Even viral contagion in the West Wing, and Trump’s own three-night hospitalization with the disease, did little to alter his virus-be-damned approach.
In a political operation where managing Trump’s mood swings became a central responsibility, the task of presenting the President with realistic expectations fell to the wayside. As printers aboard Air Force One spat out charts and data in the final stretch meant to sustain the President’s gusto, the more grim projections that showed his narrow electoral paths were left out, aides said. For a campaign whose financial troubles meant tough choices on where to place television ads, a reliable buy became the Washington cable market, where the President was certain to see.
Even as recently as last week, Trump’s advisers used tightening polls to convey momentum in their conversations with the President. He was motivated by the larger and larger crowds who gathered for his rallies, describing the scenes like a rock concert that repeated itself multiple times per day…
You thought yesterday’s spontaneous celebrations were amazing? Wait till you see what Inauguration Day in January will look like!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Reposting from below:
Frankensteinbeck
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Reposting from below!
Oh, yes. Like I mentioned, the Republicans also saw this as an existential war, and voted their virulent hatred as they saw the chance to permanently crush everyone different. They thought they could consign us to permanent suffering, misery, and even death. We saw the same thing. The results really highlighted where there are more vile bigots and where there are more decent people.
Frankensteinbeck
Not for long. You can call it loser stink if you like, but Trump was valuable to his horde of bigots as the champion of white supremacy. He’s about to stop being that. He will discover that he, personally, was never the cult’s focus. The best champion of their whiny, ignorant, asshole hatred and chickenshit bullying ever, absolutely. But by losing the election, he loses his utility.
That might explain the golfing. When Trump accepts he won’t be president in January, he will check out. He’s a transactional person, and there will be nothing in it for him anymore. Sure he believes in the destruction of government and oppressing the weak that he’s been doing, but it’s not actually rewarding. His sole interest will be protecting himself from prosecution. I expect he will go with a strategy for that so stupid that no one has anticipated it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Frankensteinbeck:
What worries me is how thin the margins were in states we’ve easily carried in the past, such as the Blue Wall. If we lose those, what future path, if any, will Dems have in the future? We liked to believe that Trump represented the last gasp of authoritarian racism and the Republican Party as currently constituted. What if this is the last gasp of the Democratic Party and American liberalism as we know it? Many Latinos it seems want to be apart of the white power structure of this country, just like the Italians etc before them
Mary G
Roh roh, Twitler:
That’ll hurt.
SFAW
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Jesus Christ can you give it a rest for a couple of days? You make me look like Pollyanna.
guachi
Champ and Major Biden have their own Twitter account and you should all follow it.
piratedan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): well, some Latino males at least… but again, I think we may be painting with too broad a brush…
it seems like Trump’s appeal was to the Cubano community, the venezuelans who were concerned about socialism, and certain latinos who apparently are very much in favor a more traditional patriarchy model…
are those sustainable? The thing is, the country need to deal with its racism issue and I think we need to deal with our media issue. I want to reiterate here that it’s damn hard to fight against the poison that is being pumped 24/7 out there on the airwaves…
these folks believe that Trump is NOT a racist, that his response during the pandemic has been the best that could be expected, that those people he rails against are absolutely deserving of his hatred. As long at that pulsating pimple of hatred continues to pump out this shit, we’re going to be unable to have a discussion on much of damn near anything.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goku, who knows, maybe the horse will sing? http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/sig.html
I confess that at times, darkly, I feel like, while there are more of us than of them, the structural biases of our Constitution, and where we live, makes it impossible for to reliably govern the country. And I think to myself that perhaps we have to stop trying to do so, and just stick to governing the Blue States, and detaching ourselves from the Red States. And what of the decent folk in the Red States? Well: encourage them to move to Blue States. Yeah, it’s expensive, and it’s not easy. But neither is becoming a refugee in a civil war, and really, we should try to avoid that. If we’re not going to be able to protect those folks anyway, we might as well gather them into the Blue States, and maybe they can help make our States even Bluer. Etc, etc.
But then, well, I remember: four years is a long time, and maybe the horse will learn to sing. Maybe the country’s demographics will change even more. Maybe Biden will succeed in pushing the bureaucracy to get more people over the threshold to citizenship. Maybe … a lot of things.
Dude, don’t give up hope. But also …. well, I have to say this: if Ohio is a hellhole, then *move*. You have transportable skills as a nurse. Move. I mean, I grew up in Texas, and I won’t set foot there until it’s been Blue for twenty years. So, probably not before I die. I’m not saying that “move” is the only answer. Like I said: we keep on resisting, and maybe things will change, and things will get better in Ohio (and other places). But you can’t structure your life choices around notional changes to the political structure of the place you live. If you can’t tolerate the place you live, then move.
gwangung
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not if we have anything to say about it.
And don’t forget….we sure as hell do have a say.
HumboldtBlue
I just listened to this and it’s a lovely piece.
Aleta
Alison Rose
I seriously still cannot believe what a massive baby this man is, and how so many people willfully throw themselves into the job of pampering him.
BR
I’m amazed at the circular firing squads I’m reading everywhere of progressives on moderates on conservatives who all supported Biden. I don’t get why people don’t take a page from Biden and see that maybe they all have a point. AOC might be right that some swing district dems who lost had bad turnout operations and/or bad online operations (there seems to be good evidence of this in some cases). But moderates and conservatives are right that being in a absurdly-solid D district is a poor perch from which to comment about what policies swing-district candidates should run on. The country is more polarized these days, and it’s really hard to get outside one’s own bubble, and leftie Dems should know this.
Anyway, I’m disappointed to see the squabbling, and wish people would show a bit of perspective.
BR
@Frankensteinbeck:
I bet it’s going to be smash and grab — they’re going to find hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government programs that magically need the services of Trump, Kushner, and company. And all the gold-circle members of his various clubs.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT:
Was wondering if I could get some opinions on an observation I’ve made recently:
It’s occurred to me that a lot of so-called “adults” like to shame other adults for liking “kids stuff”.
“Oh, you can’t like Disney movies, cartoons, or video games! That’s for kids! That’s weird! It’s time to grow up. You should be watching sports! Or a Chuck Lorre sitcom! Because being an adult is about being boring, getting married, having your 2.5 kids, and working at a 9-5 job you hate for the rest of your life, getting wasted on the weekends.”
In the last 20 years, my sense is that this has died down a lot in our culture because this was more of an older generational thing (think Greatest Generation and maybe Boomers). The people that espoused this kind of conformity have either died or are not targeted much anymore; it also probably helps that they’re not in many corporate positions to have much influence anymore
Was this kind attitude a real thing that exist(s)ed? It’s definitely a kind of gatekeeping that I find strange and condescending. I thought of this Dead Kennedy lyric from “Life Sentence” that relates to this mindset:
SFAW
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Don’t know, but plenty of adults watched Rocky and Bullwinkle and Bugs Bunny/Warner Brothers.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Heh. And then there are the young’uns who complain that nowadays old folks like me and older, are so into all the currently hip things, that they drive prices thru the sky, and the youngs can’t go to concerts, etc, etc,etc. Yeah, I think old folks are more apt to tune into young people’s art/music/whatever, than they were 30yr ago. Certainly 50yr ago. But then again ,when your own generation invented …. y’know, biting the heads off of bats onstage, or destroying guitars, or …. well, throwing panties onstage at the lead singer, it’s hard to complain about the youngs, eh?
NotMax
“Maybe keep telling him he’s first runner-up?”
“Hm. Might work. Got the word ‘first’ in it.”
//
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
There you go again.
hotshoe
@HumboldtBlue:
Since I stumbled into Balloon Juice, I hate to miss a thread, because I never know when there will be a fun music link like this.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dude, Trump is not politics, he a reality TV show. A lot of these people are just voting R like it’s American Idle. As the midterms have shown when he is off the ballot things go differently.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The opposite, many Boomers are at the age they going into their second childhoods. Not to mention a lot of Boomers, see Donald Trump, were coddled by their parents and never grew up in the first place.
Mary G
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think you have to remember that for the next two years all the corruption and incompetence will be investigated and hopefully prosecuted. The Senate map in 2022 is very good for Democrats. Things do sometimes get better, you know.
And I’ve said this before here, and I will say it again: they want you to feel hopeless and give up. It’s just as likely that Democrats choosing not to do the riskier types of campaigning, such as doorknocking, hurt our results this time. By Nov. 2022 we should have more options to be out in the community.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Have previously mentioned here that is hands down my favorite Shostakovich composition, with a permanent slot of stature on the personal classical hit parade.
Frankensteinbeck
@BR:
He mentioned leaving the country. ‘Stealing a lot of money and flying away on Air Force One, then not coming back’ is a possibility on the list. It would be completely within Trump’s character.
If he thinks he can’t escape prosecution, or the humiliation of losing is too bad, he will commit suicide. That is a Thing with narcissists. The world exists for their happiness, and if it won’t provide they check out. When that gets bad enough, they check out in the ultimate fashion.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Responded to this downstairs where it originally appeared, in case you’re curious.
Aleta
I find this surprising:
Come on CNN, stop pretending that Trump practices emotional regulation. Or just have a clue, like the obvious ones in AL’s 2nd article that contradict your genteel journalistic surprise. “Trump’s mood swings” “those closest to Trump accommodated his whims and obliged his obsessions” “Even viral contagion and Trump’s own three-night hospitalization did little to alter his approach” “forged ahead as normal while the worst public health crisis in a century…” “charts and data in the final stretch (were) meant to sustain the president’s gusto, (while) the more grim projections were left out”
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
Always go with his strengths.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@SFAW:
Sure, but I’d wager most never watched them again after a certain age and wouldn’t dream of it now, possibly because they view it as “silly kids stuff I can’t enjoy now because I’m an adult”. It’s a cultural belief that was, IMO, deeply ingrained in people for several decades. It’s bullshit of course, but that’s the impression I get
There’s another very common trope you see in pop culture that goes like this: Being an adult sucks. You’re probably going to work a job you hate, have an unhappy marriage (because that’s what society expects of us; to be married), have your 2.5 children that will probably hate your guts, and work until your life is nearly over. Getting drunk on the weekends at parties/sports events or watching movies/TV is your only release. Better enjoy high school/college, because it’s all downhill after that.
I think all of that is rubbish. Life doesn’t have to be that way, but it is something I see a lot of in pop culture. I definitely think that’s an outdated outlook born out of the post-WW2 period in America that was originally the ideal, but slowly fell out of favor as the century wore on for a variety of reasons
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Christ in a Zima bottle, do you have to turn sideways to get through a doorway while brandishing that broad brush?
frosty
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Instead of the Blue Wall we’ll have a New Wall in the South and Southwest. Take heart!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Oh, I don’t think everybody subscribed to this type of ageist gatekeeping. But seriously, try imagining even a young adult or a teen watching a kids movie in a theatre in the 80s or 90s without the 40 something parents with a kid in tow looking at them like they grew a second head or something
NotMax
Oh my. Just saw a shot of Kushner yattering about the election. He looks like something picked up at Madame Tussauds’ factory seconds outlet.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Now you -are- using too broad a brush. Even by the 90s, there were articles being written about how Americans were staying in pre-adulthood longer and longer. There’s (IIRC) well-substantiated research showing that people who never have children have happier lives than people who have children. I want to say that similar data exists for single women vs. married women, but I forget.
In any case, we’re all staying pre-adult longer and longer. I’m 55 and I still live not so differently from when I was a grad student: just now I have enough money, is all.
Aleta
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Being an adult sucks.
It really does. I have to pick up the flotsam and jetsam on the floor all by myself. And if I trip over it no one comforts me til I feel better.
(I’m not disagreeing with what you wrote btw. )
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That was my first thought, honestly. Trump won’t actually be on the ballot. Hopefully many of the 2018 gains we made weren’t just partly because of protest votes
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Nothing to imagine. Happened all the time (the attendance, not the askance looks).
What were Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Gremlins, etc., etc. if not grandiose kids’ flicks? It wasn’t kids’ allowance money which rocketed box office take for Toy Story.
frosty
@Chetan Murthy: I love the horse story. But I take exception to people moving. There aren’t blue states and red states. There are cities and rural areas. You want everyone to move from Austin to California? Bad news, the immigration goes the other way. Maryland is Blue … uh no. Central Maryland is blue but Western Maryland and “the shithouse of an Eastern Shore” to quote Willie Don Schaefer, aren’t.
California and New York aren’t blue. The cities have more population than the rest of the state. You know why PA is a swing state? Philly and Pittsburgh barely outvote the “T”.
We need to find a way to get the rural areas to vote for Democrats. FDR did it. That’s what’s going to do it in the long run.
HumboldtBlue
I love a beautiful voice. Here’s Lana Del Rey singing a gorgeous ballad.
dm
One thing I hope the Biden Administration does is bill Trump for the use of the White House as a venue for political rallies and for Air Force One for campaign transportation.
Remember how much trouble Al Gore got into for making a few campaign phone calls from his office?
guachi
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I was a teen in the ’80s and ’90s and I watched kids movies.
Heck, I watched The Muppets (2011) at the age of 37 with my dad and he and I laughed harder than anyone in the theater.
jl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Biden admin needs to solve some problems and that will fix a lot. Best thing I heard Biden say was that this an FDR moment. Be pragmatic to get results, take that case to the people.
Kent
Geez Goku. We are a 50/50 country that is constantly changing and evolving. There’s never going to be a permanent Democratic majority. But there’s never going to be a GOP one either. GA and AZ are trending blue which together balance out FL. Ohio may be shifting more towards Indiana or Kentucky than PA. I don’t really know. But NC is rapidly urbanizing and within reach.
What I do know is that the GOP has become a largely white rural and evangelical party and those are all declining forces. The Dems have become the multicultural party of the suburbs and cities. Which are growing forces. I like our chances to at least remain competitive. But the orcs will always be at the door. That’s the world we live in.
Kent
@frosty: Exactly.
The only difference between Oregon and Idaho politically is that Portland has 4x the population of Boise. Rural Oregon is every bit as red as rural Idaho. I grew up there. Likewise, the only real political difference between Minnesota and Nebraska is that Minneapolis has 5x the population of Omaha.
But we also live in a rapidly urbanizing and diversifying country. The trends are on our side, not the GOP. Georgia of all fucking places is turning blue, largely because of metro Atlanta. And the blue parts will grow faster than the red parts over the next 4, 8, and 12 years. Same as Arizona.
But long term
Eljai
@Chetan Murthy:
I love this so much, thank you! Am I disappointed in my fellow Americans who watched a sick, sick, vile man and said “give me 4 more years of this please.” Oh hell yeah. But there were enough of us still connected to our heart centers who said “are you out of your fucking mind? — NO!” And now he will not get a second term. And that’s not nothing. We opened up a new timeline with the chance to move in a different direction. I’ll take it.
NotMax
@Kent
Fortunately the orcs have not learned to say “Candygram!” and appear congenitally incapable of doing so.
:)
Chetan Murthy
@frosty: The issue isn’t merely whether a state is uniformly Blue. It is whether the Blue majorities can be prevented from governing by Red areas. With our Federal apparatus, Blue States can be so stymied. But Blue cities in Blue states cannot be so easily stymied.
Look: I also believe that the better answer is for us to turn those Red States to Blue. But from what I read, with this new Census there will be yet another round of gerrymandering that will make it even harder for Democrats to take the House. Red State gerrymander internally, making it even harder for Democrats to take power there (e.g. Wisconsin). When I get depressed, I think of this: IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD. A lot of people sacrificed a lot for this cycle and the last one. I personally spent more money on political contributions than I spend on *rent*, FFS. On. Rent. That is unsustainable. I did it because I didn’t want to regret, if Shitler won. I suspect that Dems overall spent well in excess of $8B this cycle. This. Is. Unsustainable. So at some point, either we start flipping these Red States for real, or we’re going to have to give up trying. And, yeah, gathering in Blue voters to the Blue states.
Look: I also believe that demographics is on our side. But then I look at what happened in the Rio Grande Valley, and it gives me pause. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to donate a ton of money to Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight tomorrow morning. But I’m also very aware of just how much of a hill we have to climb to really govern.
Felanius Kootea
@frosty:
The Democrat that figures this out will be hailed as a genius. FDR’s New Deal policies didn’t quite include non-whites. That’s one reason why they were popular with the majority of the electorate at the time. That obviously will not fly for the modern-day Democratic coalition. It will take some time to figure this out, unfortunately.
jl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Also, Ds have to get better at messaging. The reactionaries have been attacking anything that provides a civilized society as socialism for decades. The left wing of the D party could be erased from history and nothing would change on that front. Ds need to go on offense on health care costs, low wages, housing costs. The same FL that defeated Biden went 2/3 for 15 dollar minimum wage. That kind of thing is problem Ds need to solve, IMHO.
Viva BrisVegas
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Those two cartoons were very much directed at adults.
Wacky Racers not so much.
guachi
@Kent: We don’t yet have final 2020 vote totals but let’s assume Biden wins by 5% (he’s up 3.0% now). AZ had a partisan shift of 5.63%R in 2016 after a major shift from 2012 to 2016.
What this means is there was a D shift of about 1% from 2016 to 2020. It’s not nothing but it’s not very large like the shifts in NE-2, VT, CO, ME-1. Colorado is about as Democratic as Illinois or New Mexico are, which is wild.
It’ll be interesting to see the bluing of the SW as the Democrats need to solidify NV and AZ to combat losses in the upper Midwest where Democrats are ever weaker (except Minnesota).
NotMax
@Felanius Kootea
Quite possible that funding and subsidizing rural broadband access could serve as a modern parallel to FDR’s rural electrification programs.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
I guess all of that’s true. Getting GA, AZ, and NC would really help balance things out
jl
@guachi: I hope GOP governors keep trying to swipe jobs from CA and succeed. Too darn many people here. Let CA purple-ize as many states as possible.
NotMax
@Viva BrisVegas
Also too, the original Rocky & Bullwinkle had a stint in prime time.
the pollyanna from hell
In my 70 years I met people who made fun of adults who enjoyed children’s pastimes and entertainment, but never met a time or place when caretakers did not accept that enduring children’s entertainment was part of the job, returned its own rewards, and might uncover hidden gems of excellence or humanity. The silliness of the Roaring Twenties was only transmuted by depression and war, not eliminated. Subcultures and economic classes transmitted requirements of maturity in different ways. I would like to hear more detailed descriptions in a fuller context before any attempt at the great inter-generational narrative of Boomers this and Millennials that.
jl
@guachi: Yes, we should wait until we know what happened before we try to diagnose the problems. Unexpected defections in Hispanic voters might good wake up call to get some Dems from relying on demography alone to give them majority.
Also. 2020 was an unusual election. Some things may have been sacrificed to ensure Trump’s defeat.
frosty
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Nope. My boys and I both liked Big Bang and Home Improvement. This is extrapolating from not enough data. To put it mildly.
HumboldtBlue
One thing the rest of the country and the world to remember about Joe Biden is he supports Philly sports.
We got Gritty. (so beautiful)
The Phanatic.
And Swoop.
And as was pointed out the other day about Philadelphia is “fuck around and find out.”
Kent
It’s not just Cubans and Venezuelans. I co-coached my daughters select soccer team for 6 years in Texas together with a good friend and fellow-parent who was of Mexican-American background. He was an ex-Marine who owned a stone and tile contracting business in Waco with maybe 25 employees so he probably had half a dozen big Ford F350 pickups always piled with tile and contracting tools. He paid monstrous quarterly estimated taxes that took an accountant to figure out. He took his sons hunting and shooting via ATVs on weekends for fun when they weren’t following the Dallas Cowboys or Texas Rangers. He had a big rural spread with a big pool and a monster custom pit BBQ that put most commercial BBQ places to shame. And there were always kids and grandmas and I don’t know who all about.
Take away the 3rd or 4th generation Mexican-American heritage and he was a picture perfect example of the successful white working class Trump supporter. The notion that because of some shared Hispanic ancestry that he shared anything in common with some undocumented Honduran or Salvadoran immigrant is laughable. He was happy to hire them. But they aren’t his people. Anymore than some Appalachian rednecks from Kentucky are YOUR people because you both share Scots or Irish ancestry from 200 years ago (assuming that you do).
He liked Obama but not Hillary. And honestly the “Karen” candidates like Hillary or Klobuchar or Warren just aren’t really going to appeal. It is what it is. But a badass ex-Marine with Latino working class roots would win him over in a nanosecond. Politics is about building coalitions to get over 50%. Maybe we do that without those guys. I don’t know. Maybe we lose more than we win if we do try to appeal. That’s all above my pay grade. But I do know don’t fucking EVER use the term LatinX around these guys if you ever want them to take you seriously again. They are dads, they are Marines, they are coaches, they are football fans, they are working class, they are a lot of things but none of them ending in -X.
guachi
@jl: Even accounting for Hispanic defections, Texas probably moved a tiny bit to Democrats on the partisan index (it’ll be close enough either way to be a wash) so Biden gained votes *somewhere* in Texas.
My preliminary guess based on other states is whites in suburbs.
New York and Alaska aren’t close to done counting and they have anomalous partisan shifts (but CA doesn’t). Other than that the biggest R shifts were Illinois, Mississippi, Hawaii, Utah, and Florida.
I think even Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will end up with R shifts it’s just that there was enough of an overall shift to make up the difference. My guess is black voters in IL, MS, WI, and PA not coming out as strongly for Biden as Clinton.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@frosty:
Yeah, I didn’t know if it was an older cultural thing or not. I know some people like to put others down for liking “childish” things, which is really dumb. What I don’t understand is why they feel the need to do it? Out of some sense of bitterness?
@Chetan Murthy:
See, that’s interesting. I didn’t think that was a thing until fairly recently, like the 2000s. Personally, I don’t like that whole “pre-adulthood” concept, because I don’t think that has anything to with what being an adult. Adulthood means taking responsibility when you need to, imo. There’s nothing wrong with adults liking things like Pixar stuff, etc. A lot of “kids stuff” often has broad appeal anyway
frosty
Boomer here and I never thought this. My Millenial kids don’t feel like this. I don’t know where you’re getting this, but it doesn’t match anyone I know, in any generation.
ETA: The only reason I’m not watching Rocky and Bullwinkle now is a) I don’t have a lot of time for TV, being consumed by B-J, and b) I don’t know where to find it from my 500 channels an OnDemand.
jl
@Kent: Having grown up in a heavily Hispanic rural area, I remember that type. Conservative Hispanics have always been here. In areas where they are accepted part of the community, often they don’t Trump is talking about them during his racist rants
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
But how can they morally justify voting for a fascist who put kids in cages? Many of whom look like them
Kent
This!
Over on some Texas forums there is great wailing by all the red rock conservatives about all the newcomers bringing their lefty politics with them from CA.
Tell your governor to stop spending hundreds of millions of your tax dollars to attract Tesla and Apple and ever other tech firm is what I tell them. You think Tesla is going to hire the local rednecks to engineer its next generation of self-driving cars? You think Apple is going to hire them to engineer the next generation of its devices and apps? I don’t fucking thing so. They are going to bring most of them in from CA and the rest of the world from Mumbai to Shanghai. And they aren’t going to share any bit of your toxic racism, politics, or religion. And their kids will crush your kids in school, college and life.
Of course there’s always Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent:
My first reaction to your description of this man is “what a moral idiot”. Why? Well, lemme tellya: I’m highly educated, probably near the pinnacle of my field in the world, and have pulled down serious money. But I can SEE THE FUCKING BACK OF MY HAND [born in Bangalore, darker than many, many Black Americans] and I know that to the GrOPers I am no different from that man from Honduras.
Unlike this man you describe, I have read, understood, and *absorbed* Father Niemoller’s confession. And I’m not going to look at the world as “what’s in it for me, me me, me, MEEEEEEE”.
Yeah, your friend makes me really, ,really, really angry. What? Is he a Christian too? Wow, that’s just icing on the cake.
Yeah: I’m angry, reading your description. I’m not sorry for my anger, either. He needs to be better.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Along the same lines as why some people feel compelled to point out as some sort of merit badge that they don’t have a television machine.
;)
jl
@guachi: I think many Ds got their hopes too high based on some big poll results. But all the big models correctly called Senate races as being close to 50-50. So why the shock? Ds ran play it safe race, so the big D case was never pushed. My fear is that some Ds always want to run a play it safe race, but that leads to losing. Ds come off as chickenshits to too many people, Ds give ruthless liars the advantage.
MaryRC
@Frankensteinbeck:
I don’t see it. It would cost money and he hates to spend his own money. As an ex-president he gets some perks: Secret Service protection, money for staff and an office. But the office fund is only around $100K and that’s what, a couple of aides and some laptops? He’d have to pay for the expense of using his own plane. He’d have to pay the town where the rally is held for venue, set-up, extra security etc. and they’ll know enough to ask for cash up front.
He could charge tickets but why would people pay? While he spewed out his BS they could say “That’s our guy and he’s president!” but now he’s just another stand-up. And no one will want to wait 2 hours to be bussed back to their parking lot.
cokane
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Republicans have won the popular vote in one of the past eight presidential elections. A period of 32 years. And a period not matched by a single party since the Grand Old Party stretch post-Lincoln. It exceed even the success of the New Deal Democrats in this metric.
There’s one party that has a pretty safe medium and long term future in this country. There is one party that does not.
HumboldtBlue
@Chetan Murthy:
I hear you.
Kent
Same way anyone else did who voted for him. It’s not their kids or even Mexican kids. And those dumbass parents shouldn’t have tried to drag their kids across the desert with them in the first place. They should stay home and fix the damn places they are coming from.
And they really don’t remotely “look like him” unless you think all Hispanics look alike. There’s a big difference between an indigenous Mayan from Guatemala or El Salvador who barely speaks Spanish and some 3rd or 4th generation Texan with a Spanish last name who has family roots in Nuevo Leon.
Hispanic or Latino solidarity is just as ridiculous of a fantasy of the left that is as white nationalist racial solidary is a fantasy of some on the right. In fact, Hispanic or Latino are themselves invented American terms that mostly have no meaning anywhere else outside the US.
frosty
@Chetan Murthy: @Felanius Kootea: Good points from both of you. Agreed, FDR put his coalition together by writing off anyone who wasn’t white. It will be tougher to do it now.
jl
@Chetan Murthy: I know from personal experience that many successful Hispanics are like that. It is not a new thing. I think some Ds have gotten lazy and unoservant, falling for the idea that changing demography will bail them out without having to do a good sales job to as many segments of society as possible.
Even in CA the GOP is recruiting conservative Hispanics as candidates.
And racism is not the only reason the CA GOP died. Being toxic nasty raging loons helped. Lunatic savaging of some of their fellow GOPer governor Arnold’s popular moderate proposals didn’t help either.
Kent
I’m not sure why you are angry. He’s not a Republican or a Democrat. I expect he voted for Biden like he voted for Obama. Hillary was kind of toxic for other reasons, mostly a 30-year smear campaign that was especially fever-pitched in Texas. I’m just trying to paint a picture of a very common type of Latino guy of which there are millions across the southwest. And why they aren’t some automatic “get” for any Democrat who comes along, just because they have a D in front of their name.
It is what it is. This is a diverse and complex country. What appeals to educated suburban white women in Marin County or Bryn Mawr isn’t necessarily going to appeal to working class Latino guys from rural Texas. Politics is hard. Majorities are hard to build and harder to keep. That’s they way it’s always been and the way it always will be.
jl
@Kent: I agree. And I’ll repeat that it has always been that way. Nothing new about conservative Hispanics. As I said above, the Dem angst and panic may be more due to uncritical acceptance of slogan that changing demography will be magic fix to Dem’s electoral problems.
Felanius Kootea
@Chetan Murthy: My husband is Latino (hates the term Latinx) and has family on both sides of the Texas border. He feels that many of the Texas border Mexican-Americans who’ve lived in the US for generations just want to be Texans, period. Friday night football, rah rah patriotism, recognition and reward for their hard work, etc. He doesn’t believe that they have animosity towards immigrants from Central America, but immigration is not a big concern for them. They are just at different stages of American life.
Kent
Dems real electoral problems are mostly urban/rural geographic related to the electoral college and Senate. And that’s mostly a white problem not a Hispanic problem. Dems have won majorities in most every aggregate Senate, House, and Presidential election in the past 25 years. Certainly the huge majority of them. White rural voters just hold enormous out-size power. Not Hispanics in the RGV or Dade County.
When Democrats solve the problem of 57% of White Americans, despite the horror of the past 4 years, still thinking that Trump is the best choice for the next four. Then they will have a solid and permanent majority.
Felanius Kootea
@NotMax: Obama actually began an effort like that during his term but I don’t know how far it got.
Chetan Murthy
@Felanius Kootea:
And immigration wasn’t such a big concern for me, either. I used to say that the people of America had a right to decide (even the racist fucktards in Weatherford TX who made my childhood a misery, even *them*) what to do with their borders. And that all I wanted, was for them to not kick down. So if they didn’t want economic migrants, fine, fine — they needed to crank up the penalties and prison time for employers, and not punish the workers. Kick up, not down.
But then along came The Fascist. And I’m not an *idiot*. I can tell that even if I’m “one of the good ones”, one of the highly-educated, high-skilled ones, that doesn’t really change how Cletus thinks about me. Because I grew up with Cletus and his brethren. And what I don’t get, is that these people think that they’re somehow exempt from Cletus’ hatred. That completely baffles me.
And something else, too: Kent, you write about your friend, and how he employs those guys from Honduras. So he’s 100% OK with employing undocumented workers, yes? Sigh. It’s all FYIGM.
jl
@Felanius Kootea: I just realized you and Kent are making slightly different points than I am. I’m talking about conservative Hispanics. You’re talking about Hispanics who don’t see themselves, don’t ID at all, as oppressed minorities. They see themselves as part of mainstream culture. I agree with your point too.
jl
@Kent: I think both parties have abandoned serious outreach to regions that they think are demographically opposed. First party that pulls its head out of its ass and gets an effective pitch to stable cross section of population across red blue divide will be new ruling coalition. I think Ds have better chance. GOP has burned too many bridges with toxic bigotry of every kind.
Kent
I don’t know what to tell you to make it all better.
Sure he probably employs undocumented workers with false papers. Most every large contractor in Texas probably does. What would you have them do. Call ICE? Trawl the backwoods to find white “Cletus” meth heads who will last 3 hours on a construction site in August in Texas?
I’m not describing some MAGA guy who drank the Trump Kool-Aid. Just some average ordinary working-class Texan guy who isn’t an automatic get for every northern politician with a D next to their name just because he has an Hispanic last name.
Chetan Murthy
@jl:
And I’m not an oppressed minority, either. Heck, the well-assimilated, urbanized Jews of Germany weren’t exactly an oppressed minority until the Nazis rose to power. Many of them saw no commonality between themselves and the Jews of Eastern Europe. But the Nazis did. The Nazis could see it quite clearly. That was the *fucking* *point* of Father Niemoller’s confession.
It’s all the more disgusting, that these are *conservative* Hispanics, and hence probably “good Christians”. Sigh. It’s FYIGM all the way down.
jl
@Chetan Murthy: Politics is difficult because you have to overcome the ugly parts of human nature. Remember that those toxic attitudes have been encouraged by GOP for decades, and excused by a corrupt corporate media. Ds can’t give up or things will get worse.
Kent
@jl: Exactly. And it’s going to have to be pretty mainstream in appeal to keep the coalition wide enough to win majorities. That’s the brutal reality of American politics. We aren’t Euro-style multi-party parliamentary democracies where the parties are pure and all the coalition building happens after the voting ends. We have a two party system and have to build our coalitions the hard way through party primaries and a big tent. I think our way is ultimately more democratic because people are more directly involved.
Either way you still have to get to 50% +1 if you want to ever get anything done. And that always involves compromise somewhere. There are certain things I think are not subject to compromise and those are things like human rights and social justice. But beyond that you get what you can get and keep pushing.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: What would i have him do? (1) there are a shit-ton of Texas Dems, and he should be automatically voting for them. Because the GrOPers are gonna deport his workers. (2) He should support pols who will work to get the undocumented to legal status. Because it’s *wrong* to exploit the undocumented — morally wrong. And undocumented workers who cannot get to legal status are prey to all manner of exploitation.
That is the minimum I would expect. And this idea of some “northerner with a D beside his name” …. there are *plenty* of Dems in Texas running for office.
Felanius Kootea
@Chetan Murthy: I should clarify that my husband was born and raised in Chicago, even though his family is from both sides of the Texas border. Many distant family members in TX are evangelical Christians and that is another factor to consider.
There was a reason his immediate family settled in Chicago instead of merely crossing the border into Texas and staying with family. My father-in-law was more attuned to the opportunities in Chicago and repulsed by the historical discrimination against Mexicans in Texas. He wanted more for his kids and encouraged them to pursue higher education, so my husband got a graduate degree.
Kent
Sure. But I don’t think the GOP will keep nominating people as utterly toxic as Trump. One thing George W. Bush understood was that the GOP needed to appeal to Latinos and he made a huge effort that way. You put some non-racist Latino candidate like maybe a Marco Rubio or someone Mexican-America version of him and you’ll win a lot of Latino votes in the southwest. Prior to Trump there was really no difference in the number of deportations between GOP and Dem politicians. In fact probably more under Obama than Bush.
If the GOP can’t expand beyond their white base they will die. There aren’t enough Asians and Blacks are a MUCH tougher sell. So I expect them to go all-in to try and make inroads with the Latino vote and a part of that will be running a lot of Latino Republican candidates. It’s the logical play and has been for two decades. They are evil but not stupid (at least not all of them). They know this already.
mrmoshpotato
We can’t have too many of these. We will not get sick of winning.
Sebastian
@jl:
Latinos were bombarded with conspiracy theories and fake news via Spanish FB and Instagram. Targeted campaign. I had Latino friends parrot “47 years in government” etc
Propaganda works and we have to come up with our own for the stupid folks unless we want to give up on that part of the population.
One thing I would like to see is a Manhattan Project for voting machines and infrastructure. We have the MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and the best of the best software talent in the world in this country and we cannot come up with something? Instead we have to use some shitty Diebold code running on Embedded Windows XP?
We need open sourced bullet proof voting infrastructure. We have to be able to build voting machines from COTS (commercial off the shelf) and have software validate the security posture. The server infrastructure with voter registration, tabulation, etc the protocols for sending, validation, encryption, monitoring, … everything.
We need to get this back under our control and by our I mean We The People. There is way too much shady shit going on with this.
jl
@Kent: I think people forget that back before they went blatant racist, GOP went after the more conservative segment of many minority and immigrant communities. GW was canny enough politician to know that effort had to continue. Evolving GOP found it far easier to go with its white racist base for short run gain. Asians used to give GOP lots of support, and now I think that demo far more unified anti GOP than Hispanics.
mrmoshpotato
I don’t have words.
jl
@Sebastian: I have read that state GOPs and Trumpsters swooped into evangelical and conservative Catholic Hispanic communities and dumped propaganda, then worked out from there shoving any lie that would work, mainly the socialism shit. And that Ds missed this, offered no counter. I’d like to know more about that, if it’s true.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Frankensteinbeck:
So is murdering their entire families before topping themselves.
NotMax
@Felanius Kootea
I don’t know that either but would surmise not much beyond the blueprint stage. Because of intrinsic and immutable per mile costs requires a federal-state partnership. Initiative coming from the federal side can get it moving at more than a snail’s pace. It’s a loss leader build-out, to which I say “so what?”
Robert Sneddon
Jeb Bush’s son, George P. Bush, the family’s next Texas Governor and a future Presidential candidate has a Latino mother. He could well be the first Latino US President.
Amir Khalid
@Robert Sneddon:
George P. Bush is also the one who conceals his Latin middle name for professional reasons, I believe, so I’m not too sure how proudly Latino he wants to be.
Brachiator
Sadly, this is to be expected. The sad thing is that the GOP leadership continues to cling to Trump and are determined to go down with him.
What’s that phrase that so often is used for disastrous foreign policy? Ah yes. The public, the media need to demand to know what the GOP’s exit strategy is for detaching themselves from Trump.
This gets serious. Because of Trump’s intransigence, the GSA cannot release transition funding. And Biden’s people cannot begin the formal transfer of power. The madness of the Orange Beast puts his childish ego games ahead of the larger interests of the United States.
John S.
@Sebastian: I have one word for you: blockchain. It is entirely practical and feasible to use a distributed ledger to securely store votes which may be tallied almost instantly with very little chance of being fucked with.
You heard it from me first (maybe).
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@Robert Sneddon: the party of Dump isn’t nominating someone with brown skin, let alone another Bush, especially a Mexican.
the base used to love Dubya, but now he’s hated, as Limbaugh and hate radio blamed him for Obama’s victory. They see him a betrayer of white supremacy (“if Bush wasn’t so bad a black guy would have never won”). This is why ¡Jeb! never caught on.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
I thought his middle name was Prescott. Named for his white great-grandfather. Does he have a secret Latino middle name?
John S.
@John S.: And just to clarify, blockchain is not yet feasible technology on as large a scale as is needed. Nor does it solve the problem of cyber security for online voting which is still highly susceptible to being hacked. But it would be a much better alternative to in-person voting as opposed to Diebold, and a lot of very smart engineers are already looking into ways to make this practical.
Zzyzx
@Chetan Murthy: I’m about to turn 52 and as soon as Phish are able to get back on the road, I’ll be back to traveling to see them. Why not?
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@Chetan Murthy:
you mean you eat pizza all day and watch Letterman reruns?
NotMax
@Brachiator
George Prescott Garnica Bush.
Garnica is his mother’s maiden name.
Reference to the G middle name was all but wiped from the web simultaneously with his announcing his run for office in Texas. Still can find the original unchanged pages archived at the Wayback Machine.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Hard-core Republicans don’t care. It remains to be seen whether the Trump/Stephen Miller white nationalist agenda endures after Trump’s departure from the White House.
And the GOP continues to try to rig the system to maintain control by a white minority.
Asian Americans are a growing demographic. And a more liberal immigration policy might see that growth expand significantly. Even Trump has been smart enough to try to play to some Asian American groups. Also, there are more small business owners among some of these groups, and until the GOP started to go hard core racist, they sometimes voted for GOP candidates.
The GOP are both evil and stupid. In California, for example, the GOP went out of their way to alienate Hispanic voters.
For the longest time, Trump did not have a Hispanic person in his cabinet, something not seen since the Reagan administration. And Fox News idiots like Tucker Carlson continue to play the anti-immigration and anti-assimilation cards with respect to Hispanics and other groups. I am not sure that the GOP can, or want to, turn this around.
Van Buren
@Chetan Murthy: Tangentially related: I’m 58 and I still run across the tile floors in my house so I can slide in my socks. I can’t imagine my father doing that, but then again, when he was 58 he was a VP at a Fortune 500 company, and I spend my days teaching 10 year olds.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Ah. A well hidden second middle name.
Neither this nor his support for Trump has hurt him with Hispanic voters in Texas.
He may do well on the national level if the GOP can get rid of its toxic racism.
2liberal
@kent
looks like you were right with repeated warnings about Latino’s being a natural republican low taxes religious electorate (in Texas)
NotMax
@NotMax
One example, before and after.
(Posted those links here over 5 years ago, IIRC.)
Slap in the face to his mother to disappear the name.
Central Planning
@Brachiator:
I thought the P might have been Pene or Pendejo
Robert Sneddon
@Brachiator: George Prescott Bush’s birth certificate name reputedly includes his mother’s family name (Giancarlo?) as is common in Latino families. His Wikipedia page is monitored and ruthlessly edited by the Bush family consiglieres to prevent anyone noticing.
George P. was reportedly being referred to as “46” by the family’s fixers a while back but at the moment I think he’s still the Water Commissioner in Texas and he needs at least a few years as Lt Governor or better before he runs for Prez. He/the family learned from his uncle GW’s experiences of being dragged for his Vietnam-era ANG enrolment so George has a “proper” military career including combat zone deployment under his belt (Army lawyer in Iraq for about a year).
trnc
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In the last 20 years or so, kid entertainment has become more high quality. Adults didn’t have to cringe their way through Monsters, Inc. Ditto for video games and, to a lesser extent, tv shows created for kids older than 9.
That all probably has as much to do with kids being exposed to more products and having higher expectations, so it isn’t all about how much adults have changed.
trnc
Gvg
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I was a young adult in the 80’s. I went to Disney movies a few times and didn’t notice anyone looking at me funny. I usually went with friends. You worry about things too much. Listen, there were always a few gloomy Gus’s about, but that doesn’t mean everyone or even most people were like that. I think there was a song or too with that point of view and I thought the song writers were full of it. Pink Floyd?
Gvg
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Pixar’s Cars is all about NASCAR. My gun nut southern uncle explained that whole movie is in jokes for adult NASCAR fans and ALL of the character except McQueen are someone specific and very recognizable to his generation which is older than I am.
My nephews loved that movie. I think a lot of parents encouraged it but apparently my Uncle loved it before he had a grandson to show it to.
WereBear
@piratedan:
Please! That’s what they SAY.
What they DO is selfish cheating for advantage, a refusal to help with any common good whatsoever, making their “enemies” suffer, and spite.
Pure spite that a more functional and egalitarian society would take away their unearned societal advantage, and that’s all they have.
If competence is demanded for a successful rise, they are doomed and they know it.
Patricia Kayden
Mai Naem mobile
Why is this 70M voter number so great? I bet 2/3rds would have voted for a half brain dead guy named Hitler as long as he had an ‘R’ behind his name. Honestly I think it’s the same for a Dem. I think the 7 M of whatever Biden ends up winning by says more. There is a piece on the WSJ about Biden not winning Donnie voters in the blue wall states. Its behind a pay wall so I can’t read it but it sounds interesting. I am guessing its getting out younger and minority voters to vote.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile: I agree. And although people bemoan about the loss of Latino vote, IIRC we still did better in Texas than we have in the past.
The Dem share of the minority vote is extraordinarily high. We should expect that share to go down as we defeat racism and minorities are more able to exercise the same ideological choices as white Americans.
Emma from FL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): golly. I’m in the middle of a visit from my cousin Eta. I got all the negativity I can get from Mother Nature. Bye all.
PST
@Kent:
Kent’s example has to be taken very seriously, especially by those who see demographic shifts automatically creating partisan shifts. The other side of his Texas friend’s case is the 3rd or 4th generation Mexican-American lawyer or teacher or nurse in Chicago or a hundred other cities. I hate to extrapolate too much from limited experience, but my observation is that they too generally share social and political views with their white, college-educated, non-Hispanic friends, neighbors, and relatives. Which means they continue to mostly vote Democratic and they won’t throw up if someone says Latinx. Take away the special south Florida cases, and the future isn’t Latinos moving to the Republican side, it is greater sorting by geographic and socio-economic factors.
Ian
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
If you would have told Ian from twenty years ago our route to the presidency was through Georgia and Arizona I would have laughed till I was blue in the face.
Things change. People move. Opinions and Issues shift over time. If we stop focusing so much on the needs of the rust belt states we can start to develop a platform that appeals more to our growing suburban and southwestern base.
Kathleen
@Frankensteinbeck: I love your posts. Dems did very well in Hamilton County. If OH1 boundaries were Hamilton County we’d have flipped a seat but alas we’re saddled with Warren County as well. We monopolize County and judicial offices. Our 3 commissioners are women (2 are African American). Our County Chair is an African American woman who has worked closely with labor unions which have been Democratic strongholds. We went 57% for Biden. I’m proud of what they’ve accomplished.
SFAW
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Thanks for sharing your valuable opinion.
AnnaN
“…altogether surprising in how little the President appeared to prepare himself emotionally for defeat”
It constantly amazes that after all this time, people seem confused on how narcissistic personality disorders work.
Kayla Rudbek
@jl: we need better spin doctors/propagandists/advertisers/story tellers working for our side instead of working for the GOP. If 47% of the population can only be reached emotionally, then by God manipulate them into voting for the Democrats instead of the Repukes.
geg6
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m not a good person to ask, since I didn’t even like cartoons or Disney as a kid. So I have never understood the attraction to it.
RAM
It’s impossible to overstate how lucky we are that Trump and his goons have proven to be so inept at retail politics. It was obvious from the start, but was remarkable that they were incapable of learning from their mistakes, much like Trump’s approach to business and his string of colossal failures. An intelligent Trump may well have destroyed the nation and the Constitution by now. As it was, it was a near run thing. A damned near run thing.
JanieM
@Aleta:
@AnnaN:
I’m with you two about the “altogether surprising.” Though I wouldn’t put it so politely. Where the hell has this idiot been for the past five years?
Skepticat
Much like absolutely everything else he always has done. There is no bottom.
AnotherBruce
@Chetan Murthy: Blue states can gerrymander. And they damn will should. Why not?
NotMax
@AnotherBruce
Because the answer to “Everybody’s doing it? If all your friends jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge would you too?” is not supposed to be “Hell, yeah!”
taumaturgo
@jl:
Democrats’ messaging is a huge issue, and the Florida example is on point. The campaign didn’t attempt to link itself with the $15 minimum wage issue and it most likely cost Biden enough votes to win the state or more importantly to help the downvote candidates. Something similar happened in AZ where there was a marijuana legalization question. If Biden had communicated his support for the measure he could have garnered more votes for a larger lead.
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I am done, Goku. Grow up and in a few months I will take another look at something you post, but for the duration, you are a pupcake or some such pastry. Jeeze, louise, man!
LeeM
@MaryRC: I’ve wondered if his move to Florida coincides with Limpballs inevitable and permanent retirement. Trump would love to be the right wing center of attention, throwing crazy CTs at his perceived enemys. He wouldn’t even need to commute from Mar a Lago.
J R in WV
@Robert Sneddon:
Nope. He might be the nation’s 3rd Bush president, though.
taumaturgo
The D’s gave up long ago when Clinton was elected and “triangulated” the working class to shreds. His administration cemented neoliberal economics continuing Regan’s government is the problem and try to outdo the GOP when it came to law and order.
Rand Careaga
@NotMax:
My own, also hands down, is his Op. 87, 24 Preludes and Fugues, portions of which sound like God thinking aloud when He’s in a particularly pensive frame of mind.
Ohio Mom
Goku:
When people have kids and grandkids, they dust off their old Rocky and Bullwinkle (or whatever) videotapes in eager anticipation of sharing them with the newest generation.
Then they realize they need a digital version. Really, my sister is digitalizing her old Burl Ives vinyl records for her now six month old first grandchild.
(Yeah, I don’t think grandson is going to be that impressed either.)
Blue Galangal
He’s literally a freakin’ toddler. Literally. A poorly disciplined one.
Barry
@frosty:
” You want everyone to move from Austin to California? Bad news, the immigration goes the other way.”
That’s good news, I hope, that the right-wing of California is moving to Texas, where it becomes the center zone, dragging Texas politics with it.
Barry
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“But how can they morally justify voting for a fascist who put kids in cages? Many of whom look like them”
The classic first two things that immigrants learn in the US have been:
(a) Look down upon Blacks,
(b) Look down upon the next group, who are ‘not hard-working people like my parents were’.
Also, if you push people’s buttons right, they’ll ignore almost everything.
No One You Know
@Chetan Murthy: Yep. I also did this. And wrote several scorching letters to my reps about campaign financing and Citizens United as well. We shouldn’t have to pit small donors against billionaires and corporations to buy a seat in government. That completely undermines the alleged point of our government system.